Post navigation

Do you own gun stocks?

You almost def­i­nite­ly own gun stocks if you invest in mutu­al funds. Sorry if that’s bad news.

I own a sword. A real sharp sword. I would have no prob­lem hav­ing to reg­is­ter it, or hav­ing rules around car­ry­ing it prop­er­ly. I would total­ly have a prob­lem with sim­ply ban­ning it, like they have in London. From what I under­stand, gang vio­lence with machetes in the UK was so bad they banned long knives (includ­ing swords). It’s incred­i­bly wrong, in my mind, to have such a broad reach­ing ban with­out an easy way for law abid­ing cit­i­zens to work around it.

My opinion, don’t hate me

I don’t believe machete man­u­fac­tur­ers are lob­by­ing the House of Commons to get UK “large knife laws” repealed. I don’t under­stand why the gun com­pa­nies have so much influ­ence in Washington, or why pol­i­cy mak­ers con­sid­er their point of view when cre­at­ing pol­i­cy. (I mean, I do under­stand it, but in my opin­ion is mis­guid­ed in the same way that com­pa­ny CEO’s who only con­sid­er share­hold­er return when it comes to deci­sions about the com­pa­ny.)

Investing in gun stocks

Anyways, if guns aren’t your thing you may not want to invest in gun stocks (the com­pa­nies that make the guns, and make them avail­able so promis­cu­ous­ly).

That’s not a judge­ment on any­one else’s ethics or choic­es. It’s per­fect­ly OK to invest in the com­pa­nies that make you the most mon­ey, even if they make prod­ucts that have become so divi­sive to our coun­try. But it’s also OK to invest in align­ment with your social val­ues.

Not only will you still make mon­ey, but you’ll feel bet­ter about your­self while you do.

6 thoughts on “Do you own gun stocks?”

A very inter­est­ing look on guns, like you said, if you invest in mutu­al funds you might be invest­ing in guns. But I think there is a way to spec­i­fy that you do not want your mon­ey invest­ed in a spe­cif­ic kind of stock if you are real­ly keen on not sup­port­ing gun com­pa­nies.

If you are invest­ing in funds of any sort, you’re “stuck” with the man­agers’ deci­sion on what to invest in. Your only choice is in decid­ing which funds to invest in, and you can cer­tain­ly find eth­i­cal­ly-based funds of all sorts. I sug­gest hav­ing a look at Stash. Stash is very pop­u­lar, and explains their invest­ments in plain English and tar­gets spe­cif­ic demo­graph­ics that might align with a moral-invest­ing strat­e­gy.

As a life­long mem­ber of the NRA, I appre­ci­ate your arti­cle and l am sure you are pleased to hear l changed my mind and will not sign with you. l think you have a rep­utable com­pa­ny but l pre­fer to invest in Smith and Wesson or even Red Ryder B.B.guns if they are prof­itable.

If you think they’re good invest­ments and they align with YOUR social val­ues, then I hope you’re suc­cess­ful. They don’t align to mine… that said, they’re just mine not everyone’s.

The main point of the arti­cle is that peo­ple thing strong­ly about some­thing (any­thing) and the behav­ior they adopt by blind­ly invest­ing in funds stands in stark con­trast to their own impor­tant beliefs… with­out them even real­iz­ing.

Rollover your 401K

May 2017, the books are available on iTunes & Kindle (in ebook and paperback). They're also in McNally Jackson in Soho, NY.

Switching jobs? You want to roll over your 401K to an IRA and here's a free download that walks you through creating your own Elephant's Paycheck:

I will never spam you. Unsubscribe at any time.

Cool, you're going to love it. Important: You're going to get an email with a link to download, please make sure to check your spam/newsletter folders if you don't see an email in your inbox.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Email Address

Total Subscribers

961

About David

David Bressler is a tech executive who began offering financial coaching after noticing how little people know about investing. Since then he has made it his mission to help as many people as he can learn how to build sustainable wealth and gain financial flexibility.

Bressler, who earned his MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business, writes and speaks about how adopting a few simple habits can dramatically improve your financial future. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children. The Elephant in the Room has a Paycheck is his first book.